Republican businessman Curt Clawson won the special election Tuesday to replace former Rep. Trey Radel in Florida's 19th District — an outcome long expected in this heavily Republican district on the state's Gulf Coast.

Clawson defeated Democrat April Freeman, 67 percent to 30 percent, with 1 percent of precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press. He is expected to be sworn in later this week. The special was called after Radel's resignation in January, which followed his guilty plea two months earlier to cocaine possession in Washington, D.C.